Air seeders are known in the agricultural industry for planting and fertilizing crops. A typical air seeder comprises a frame for mounting a plurality of furrow openers and an agricultural commodity cart comprising at least one, and commonly two, three or more tanks for carrying various agricultural products like seed and fertilizer. Although not always present, commonly there is a conveyor mounted on the cart for transferring agricultural products from transport vehicles into the tanks. It is commonly seen as more convenient to mount a conveyor on the cart rather than on each transport vehicle, or maneuver a portable conveyor as a separate implement altogether.
The conveyor is typically mounted on a pivot mechanism configured to allow it to be moved from a transport position, where the bottom end of the conveyor is raised for transport, to an operating position where the bottom end is lowered to receive agricultural material from the transport vehicle, and is typically resting on the ground. The pivot mechanism also allows the conveyor to be maneuvered so that a spout on the upper discharge end of the conveyor can be maneuvered to direct agricultural product from the conveyor into the filling hatch for each tank.
Cart loading conveyors commonly include a hopper at the bottom intake end to receive agricultural product from the transport vehicle. Conventional cart conveyors typically comprise simply a straight tube with an auger inside to convey the product, and the hopper is simply mounted on the lower end. With hopper-bottom trailers such as are increasingly being used to carry agricultural products to air seeders, it is difficult to position a conventional hopper under the discharge chute located in the center of the trailer.
Canadian Patent Application Number 2,257,048 to Lisafeld discloses an agricultural commodity cart having an auger conveyor with an auger extension and hopper that extends horizontally under such a hopper-bottom trailer when the auger conveyor is in an operating position. Thus the hopper can be positioned under the discharge chute of the trailer to receive agricultural product. The length of the conveyor is increased by addition of the auger extension, such that the conveyor extends significantly beyond its original position. In some cases this can make it impractical to use the auger extension since it can interfere with other operations. The added weight of the auger extension further makes it more difficult to maneuver the conveyor manually into a desired position.
It is generally desirable to clean out the hopper on such conveyors when changing from one agricultural product to another in order to minimize contamination of the tanks with different agricultural products. On conventional cart conveyors, it is often possible to simply rotate the hopper on the conveyor tube such that the hopper is oriented downward. The auger can then be rotated in reverse so that material in the tube falls out of the lower end of the tube and into the inverted hopper and onto the ground.
Similarly in the apparatus of Lisafeld, while the hopper cannot be rotated on the auger tube, a cleanout port is provided in the bottom of the hopper so that the auger can be reversed and the majority of material will fall out the cleanout port. Some manual pushing of material is required to completely clean out the hopper.
As agricultural equipment grows larger, it is desired to provide larger conveyors for loading agricultural commodity carts. Such carts are now available that will carry 500 bushels or more of various agricultural products, and so the conventional seven and eight inch diameter auger conveyors take a significant amount of time to transfer a full load of product from the transport vehicle to the tanks. Ten inch auger conveyors would be much faster, however the large size makes it difficult to maneuver such conveyors.
It is desirable that the intake for a conveyor be screened to sieve the agricultural products and prevent entry into the agricultural commodity cart of lumps or foreign objects that could plug the tubes that carry agricultural products. This sieve screen has a mesh size that inhibits the flow of agricultural products through the sieve screen and into the auger intake. When increasing the capacity of the auger conveyor provision must also be made to provide a larger area of sieve screen that will allow the agricultural products to flow into the intake at the required increased rate. With conventionally configured hoppers this can be problematic since the conventional hopper is inclined on all sides. Thus to increase the sieve screen area, the conventional hopper must be made larger in every direction, which can interfere with fit under the discharge chute of a material transporting vehicle and ready storage in the transport position.